


Foolosophy

by wish



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 11:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wish/pseuds/wish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>at first i was so lonely that i cried, but i eventually got used to being alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foolosophy

**Author's Note:**

> i also did a Noiz fanmix as a companion to this fic, if you're interested in listening as you read!!
> 
> http://8tracks.com/octomaids/2253142

They always said he was the reckless child, the heartless child, the kind other mothers whispered about behind sweaty palms and plastic nails. People shouldn’t have children they can’t control, they’d hiss, forked tongues slipping in and out between their teeth. Didn’t anyone teach him right?

The first time he dies is at age seven.

♡♡♡

He likes butterflies, mostly. They might have even been his favorite thing, long before his rabbit and Aoba and the few others that came after that. He likes their soft fluttering like his mother’s eyelashes and he likes how the sun shines through their wings, blue like stained glass or ripe orange of a midsummer sunset. He tries to catch them, to hold them close, but it never goes the way it does in his head, as he later finds is true for all things.

“You’re killing them,” she’d say, frowning a little at what’s left of the butterfly dust, cupped in his small child’s hands in hopeful earnest. “Some things aren’t meant to be caught, Noiz.”

When he’s seven, he presses against his classroom’s fish tank as hard as he can, until his hands go through, and the water and life spill out across the floor. The children cry and the teacher screams and it’s not for a few moments that he notices the leftover shards of glass piercing through one side of his arm and out the other.

When they get home from the hospital, he pokes at his bandages, trying to find the holes, until his mother slaps his hands away. There are tears in the corners of her eyes, but he doesn’t understand, never will. He doesn’t go back to school that year.

♡♡♡

There’s this game he often plays, one he knows he’ll always win.

He bites his own tongue as hard as he can, until his mother shrieks and the blood slips down his chin, ruining her life and his new uniform with just a few small drops. He thought it was food, he’d say, fingers crossed behind the small of his back, grinning wide with baby pink, baby teeth.

The sensation is so strange, unlike anything, making him wince and quiver pleasantly in equal parts. He takes to chewing on his tongue constantly, reopening old wounds, sucking away the oozing blood like hot iron in his mouth.

Another day, another doctor’s bill. He sees his mother between the crack of his door, crying into his father’s chest as he smooths down her hair. He didn’t know something was wrong with him until the man in white said he couldn’t find the cause, couldn’t find the cure.

♡♡♡

Loneliness is worse, he thinks. Worse than biting his own tongue almost in half, worse than digging into his wrist with a fork. There is no curiosity or satisfaction; no cost/reward. All he wants is for it to end.

The last time he saw his mother she was staring at him from across the room, nonreactive as he picked at the scabs on his knees. He can’t remember the sound of his father’s voice. He’s ten, too old to cry, too old to miss her gentle touches, the butterfly kisses he couldn’t even feel.

He cries anyway, sobs until his nose runs disgusting, sticky little trails down his face. His throat is raw, but he only knows because when he screams, no sound comes out.

A week later, the maid brings in a tiny ball of white fuzz, and tells him he can’t break this, too, or he’ll really die forgotten and alone, just like they all say.

When she leaves, he curls himself around it, imagining that he’s a wall, a shield, a cocoon.

♡♡♡

"It would be better if... he just didn’t exist, you know?"

He’s fourteen now, and he’s long since forgotten how to cry. Instead, he stares at the paint chipping beside his door, listening as his parents speak quietly amongst themselves, separated from him by only a thin sheet of plaster and a few thousand light-years.

He feels nothing at the words. The usual, he supposes.

Instead, he stands up, rubbing his rabbit between the ears absently as he makes his way towards the window. The night air is cool - or, at least he imagines it is. There’s a fire glowing in his chest, and he doesn’t know what to call it, exactly, but he’s feeding the embers.

The sound of an engine, his reservations left forgotten on the floor. Someone asks him how old he is, laughing, so he shuts them up by sticking his tongue in their mouth. Hot, he thinks. He slides it along the line of their teeth, exploring the crevices, the blunted edges. He hasn’t played the game in a while, and the feeling sends an echo of a shiver down his spine.

He loses his innocence to a girl in a hotel room that night; he leaves before the room service can arrive, forgets to even glance at the outline of her shadow on the shower curtain.

He doesn’t feel different, like they always said he would. He doesn’t feel anything, really.

♡♡♡

Somewhere along the way, he realizes that people want things from him. They want him to pay for dinner or they want him to score them some Molly or they want his dick in them, sometimes all of the above and sometimes even more. He gets bored of it quickly, their names and their faces and the effort to remember which belongs with which and who wants what from him. Maybe he’s hoping for something else or maybe he’s just used to the routine.

He’s getting his eyebrow pierced when someone tells him about Rhyme. A game that’s like another dimension, they say, another plane of reality, and his ears perk up like his rabbit’s used to when he let her have his vegetables, back before they carried her out of his room, limp in a plastic bag.

“It’s really popular in Japan right now, not gonna release in Germany for another eight months.”

He pirates it anyway, a Japanese dictionary at his side as he transfers it to his Coil from his PC. He finds the difficulty setting first, turns it all the way up.

Two Japanese guys stand on opposing sides of a digital field, their all mates anxious, pawing at the ground. He lets them attack him with no resistance, no fight, spreading his arms wide.

When he wakes up, there is a dull throbbing in his veins, distant but it’s the most alive he can ever hope to feel.

He immediately signs back on.

♡♡♡

(It was just the simulated sensory at first. He didn’t care who saw him, what they thought. All he cared about was the soft flicker of pain, and the feeling of his body deteriorating beneath it as he disappeared from the digital world.

He wonders if dying in reality feels the same, or maybe even better...)

Later it becomes something more. He wants to dominate it and everyone within. It becomes a burning in him, consuming his life and time and everything in between. The dark circles under his eyes are the most distinguishing feature on his face. He doesn’t look long enough in the mirror to even notice.

♡♡♡

There’s a seven hour difference between Germany and Midorijima. He knows because it’s in the early morning, when the house is quiet, that he can always find the best players, the most interesting fights. He already has a reputation by the time he steps off the plane.

They name him R4BBIT.

He’s American, they say. An urban legend, a glitched NPC, a corporate device, a ghost. At first, he’s just apathetic. It’s the shadow of something that’s always been intangible that keeps him coming back, the chance of flipping a switch that has been off since that day ten years ago, when he thought the glass shoved through his arms looked as transparent as butterfly wings.

It’s the same game, different day. In the end, he never really won this one, either.

♡♡♡

Money is easy. Perhaps business tactics run thick in the blood or perhaps he’s more adaptable than he gives himself credit for, but it comes just as easily as it always did, back when all it called for was an empty wallet and an outstretched hand.

He lives on energy drinks and delivery pizza, ramen and perpetual self-dissatisfaction. The locals laugh and say his Japanese is a bit too formal. He can never remember what day of the week it is.

He beats some punk who recognized his all mate one day on the way home from the convenience store. The evening is humid, but he doesn’t take off his hat.

“I’ve still seen better than you,” the kid says smugly after their fight, despite or because of his loss, he really can’t be sure.

He dips down to pick up his bag, more interested in the way the plastic crinkles in his hand than anything this guy has to say. Another five minutes wasted; he needs to get home.

To his slight annoyance, the voice continues. “Not everyone’s been around that long, not everyone remembers when that freak was putting those losers in the hospital. They say some even died when they played him.”

He pauses, inclining his head.

The kid’s mouth twists into something like a smirk, and he’s annoyed again for a moment, giving someone else that kind of free satisfaction.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of--”

♡♡♡

Sly Blue is easier to find than he had anticipated. Ridiculous. Whatever.

It was still too much trouble, as it seems. The guy standing across the custom map from him is two parts flustered, one part blue raspberry, and no parts homicidal Rhymster veteran. With each silly protest that Blue doesn’t know what he’s doing, he can feel his patience dwindling.

“Let’s finish this quickly,” he says to Usagimodoki, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning away. What a waste of time.

It’s just before he finishes his attack that someone else responds. The sound of it sends chills up his spine like nothing he’s ever felt before, freezing him in place. It’s the kind of voice you might hear in a nightmare, inside your head and out and touching the very part of you not meant for others to see. Blue’s mouth moves with the words. His eyes are purest white.

♡♡♡

The Seragaki household is quiet when he slips in, the front door unlocked, beckoning. He takes a glass of milk up with him to the second floor, sipping it, not even bothering to step lightly upon the staircase.

Seragaki Aoba stumbles in a few hours later, face red and eyes wild, but he’s pretty much done anyway. He stands up and sighs, leaving the empty glass on the floor.

♡♡♡

He calls first, just to make sure Aoba’s there, hangs up at the soft sound of his voice.

The junk shop is... charming, in its own regard. He ignores the other patrons, scanning his eyes over the retro vending machine parts and broken neon signs. Charming, yeah.

“...Noiz?” Aoba says, stopping mid-run, dripping with children hanging from his arms, and Noiz realizes belatedly that one of the kids was him all along.

“Yo,” he replies.

The remaining children abandon their former mission and charge at him, but he sidesteps them, impulsively picking one up under her arms and bringing her close to his face. When he sets her back down, she jumps away, screaming about holes and blood and now he’s bored of her childishness until--

“Sexual harassment piercing guy...” Aoba giggles as he repeats her, his eyes closed and mouth open. Noiz stares at him, and before he realizes it they’re suddenly alone, punctuated by a chiming at the front door and a following silence.

“You know,” Aoba begins, bracing his fists against his hips and looking at Noiz with a chastising grin, “You can’t just go around kissing--”

But Noiz steps forward and promptly cuts him off, gripping him by the jaw and tilting his head up. He likes the surprised expression on his face, stares into the pale eyes for a moment before leaning down and tasting his mouth.

Sweet, he thinks.

Aoba backs away, his face brighter than the little girl’s was, the back of his hand pressed up against his mouth as though to make sure it’s still there.

“Cute,” Noiz says to himself, but Aoba doesn’t seem to hear him.

♡♡♡

He’s never really thought much about why people do the things they do. Everything he does is for a reason. It’s always been clear to him, the final goal, the outcome. A give and take exchange for mutual benefit. If it doesn’t affect him, he doesn’t have interest in other people and their actions.

So why...

He shakes his hat off with a swipe of his hand, runs his nails over his scalp and pulls at his hair until he can feel it standing on end. _Kuso_... He wants to punch something, but his knuckles are still bandaged from last time. How annoying, the frailty of this body.

He goes downstairs instead.

Aoba is asleep on the couch, breathing softly, smiling. Noiz stares at him for a moment, eyes narrowed.

_Why did you follow him into Platinum Jail? Why...?_

Easy, he thinks. Because there’s a debt to be paid. Once this is over, it’ll be time to collect. It’ll be--

He jerks his head away, suddenly irritated, and reaches down to pick up the blue ball of fur before heading back upstairs.

Later, he finds that when Aoba’s angry, his cheeks puff out and red flushes all the way down his neck to his chest. It’s different than when he’s embarrassed, but cute, either way. He almost makes the observation aloud on impulse, but stops himself short, at a loss for words and not sure why.

In his moment’s hesitation, Aoba sees his hand, and his face goes pale.

“You’re--”

“Whatever.”

Noiz kicks his door shut, then looks at the blood running down his wrist. Tch. Weakness.

♡♡♡

Baka, he thinks, glancing at his own blood pooled in Aoba’s palm, anger boiling up hot in his chest. Dummkopf. Baka.

Twice, now. Three times. He’s starting to feel seven years old again, unsure why his mother wouldn’t let him play with his wounds, that look she gave him like she was going to vomit. What could he want, what could he possibly be trying to barter for?

Oh.

He’s fine with it, honestly. All teeth and tongue and half-assed excuses, but that’s the way he likes it. He pins Aoba to the couch, snaking his hand up the back of his shirt, smiling when the skin there jumps at his touch. He tastes just as sweet as he did the first time, shivering when Noiz’s tongue ring slides along the roof of his mouth, breath heavy and eyes half-closed.

It doesn’t mean much to him, really. It never has. But when Aoba looks up at him, eyes burning and back teeth gnawing at his cock, he comes harder than he ever has.

♡♡♡

Sighing and oblivious, Aoba just slides down the lockers, wincing despite himself, hesitantly inspecting his own wound. Noiz’s temper flares up hot and he presses his hand stark against it, ignoring the blood, refusing to pull away. Aoba cries out, tiny tears glittering down his face, pleading.

“Don’t you care if you live or die?” he shouts in desperation.

“Not really.”

Aoba’s eyes grow wide, his mouth moving wordlessly, until he grits his teeth and socks Noiz right in the jaw.

(What did he really expect him to say, anyway?)

It feels good. Not the pain of it, but the release. He licks blood from the side of his mouth, smiling at the nostalgia of the taste. “Bring it on,” he says.

♡♡♡

It isn’t until the singing starts that he realizes he’s probably going to die. Shit.

He fights his damn hardest, anyway. Harder than he's ever fought for something as inconsequential as his own life. He doesn’t think much about it, can’t even begin to, doesn’t know where to start.

Instead, he thinks about someone he will actually regret not seeing again before he’s gone. His fingertips gently brush his own lips, his tongue ring pressed against the back of his teeth, face still a little hot. He realizes belatedly that it isn’t enough, was never enough.

And then he’s falling...

♡♡♡

He has this dream. It’s nothing special, really. He’s in the center of a crowd, surrounded by people he doesn’t know but who look slightly familiar. They might have gone to primary school together, passed each other in the hallways countless times, heedless times. Everything is monochrome. Nothing special--

But, he can’t move. He doesn’t realize it at first, since he looks the same as everyone else. There’s a coldness deep inside of him, and he wants help, needs help, but they’re smiling as they back away, whispering about him in the corners of his eyes, retching, gagging...

When he reaches out, the places where he touches them turn black, infectious, and the people scream and wither and fall to the ground, unmoving. At first, he doesn’t want to touch them, doesn’t want to hurt them, but the coldness gnaws at him until all he cares about it getting it out out out OUT--

Soon, it’s all that’s left. Bodies. Blackened blood. No one else, nothing else, except--

“Noiz...” says the boy with blue hair, pain and relief lovely in this monotonous world as they coil around his voice.

Noiz stares at him likes he’s a mirage, a vestibule of hope, the butterfly dust in his hands.

♡♡♡

He realizes later that he didn’t die after all, and it comes over him in a rush like a tidal wave, like remembering that the things that happened in a dream were inside your head all along. He’s anxious before the IV goes into his arm, sure that he’d imagined the pain, all of it, but when it slides in he wants to cry from the relief.

“Oh, did that hurt?” the nurse says upon glancing at his face.

He doesn't reply, looking away instead.

♡♡♡

It’s harder than he thinks it should be, finding words to match the chemical imbalance circulating through his brain and lighting down his veins, sparking at the tips of his fingers. He manages, though, or Aoba makes sense of the wrong things he says, putting them together like a game of scrabble only he can win.

(For a moment, he’s afraid, exposed as he’s never been before, vulnerable, weak. His heart, bloody and beating in someone else’s hand.)

Noiz only realizes when Aoba leans over him, tugging his lip between his teeth in concentration, as if this is their first kiss and he wants to make it perfect... that affection is actually the opposite of pain, and that he’s been living all this time without being able to feel either.

After they’re done, he doesn’t let Aoba move for a while, leaning back and clutching the boy to his chest in contentment. A sudden thought comes to him, and he laughs a little, at how much and how easily things can change.

Aoba stiffens under his arms, the chin tucked against Noiz’s shoulder shifting. “What?”

“I was just thinking about how this sort of thing used to be so worthless to me. At best: a bargaining chip. At worst: a catalyst for inconvenience.”

Aoba shoots upright, leaning back to look Noiz in the eye with an expression of disgust. “What kind of way of thinking is that? A philosophy for idiots?!”

Noiz only looks away, the muscles in his face pulling into something tight like a grimace. (What's this, he wonders. Is it shame?) He feels Aoba’s fingers at the side of his face, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he leans into them. Warm, he thinks.

When he looks back, Aoba’s smile is too big, too strained, fat tears betraying him in the corners of his eyes. It's blinding, and for a moment Noiz's mind goes completely blank.

“Jeez, don’t talk about yourself like that," Aoba says, his voice cracking. "That's not your life anymore, okay?”

Noiz can’t help the small smile that escapes. He leans his forehead against Aoba’s, feeling him shaking beneath his bandaged hands as he tries to keep from crying.

Someone crying for him. It’s new, or old, or something.

“Yeah,” he says.

♡♡♡

When he steps out of the limousine, he feels oddly calm, still as water, the shoreline at the head of a hurricane. The plane ride was worse, he thinks. Much worse.

He checks his reflection in the mirror-glass window, fixing his tie and smoothing down his jacket. In the background, he can see Aoba at the computer in Heibon, resting his head on the desk, Ren at his side.

(For a moment, Noiz has this sinking, anxious feeling that he didn’t do the right thing. That it was all a mistake, that he’d left scars that could never be healed, that nothing would ever be the same again. His hand pauses over the doorknob, shaking.)

Before he can think more on it, he swallows and steps into the junk shop. A familiar bell rings above his head, bringing him back to a time that seems as far away as a past life.

He stops at the sight of the dark circles under Aoba’s eyes, his wary expression before he realizes that he knows the person standing before him. It’s a good kind of hurt, though, the kind that reminds him he can still feel at all.

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired in part by the doujinshi "Primal Love Foooolosophy," as the title implies haha. i'm sorry for the liberties i took with head canons as well!! they got away from me a bit oops (i haven't played re:connect either, so i apologize for inconsistencies with noiz's childhood!! they were unintentional)


End file.
